


i could stare at your back all day

by girljustdied



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-30 18:03:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17228648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girljustdied/pseuds/girljustdied
Summary: jace and maia take off.





	i could stare at your back all day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [firstaudrina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstaudrina/gifts).



> post "erchomai." as far as jace and maia are concerned, clary is dead.  
> prompt was "and i know i've kissed you before, but i didn't do it right. can i try again?"

He’s fastening a duffle to his motorcycle just as she gets back into Brooklyn, her shoulder sore from bearing the weight of her own bag. Jace. Leather coat on, collar turned up around his neck despite the beginnings of late spring heat. She understands that he’s leaving without notice by his quick, furtive movements, and by the time of day. She’d chosen a bus that arrived in Penn Station at 6 a.m. in an effort to get home while her nocturnal friends were still asleep. Avoid the welcome backs for as long as she could. Imagines Jace is on a similar route—just heading in the opposite direction.

He tracks her approach without quitting the motions needed to ready the bike. Flicks the hair out of his eyes with a jerk of his head when it slopes down to obscure his vision, hands busy. “Maia.”

“Jace,” she returns in kind. “Did you leave a note at least? Tell them you’re okay? Where you’re going?”

If he’s surprised by how clearly she’s figured out his current trajectory, he doesn’t show it. “I don’t know where I’m going.” Then, “And anyway, did you?”

“I told Simon.” She feels a flutter in her gut at saying the name aloud. It’s not a good feeling. “And telling him is pretty much the same as telling every single person on the planet, so.”

His mouth stretches into a grim smile, “Efficient.”

Clutching the strap of her duffel bag too tightly to keep from reaching out to still his preparations with force, she sighs and uses her words instead, “Would you hold still for a minute?”

He does. Leans back against the seat and crosses his arms over his chest. “Can’t we skip whatever motivational speech you apparently feel compelled to unload? Take a second to picture how much better your life will be without me in it.”

“Look, I know what happened—”

“Yeah, well, I know what happened to you, too.” At her squeak of dissent, he shrugs, “Simon, remember?”

Maia remembers the sound of wet air bubbling out through the gashes in her throat. How it was the only noise she could make, her voice caught in blood and mangled flesh. The way Jordan had stood over her, crying, before he left. “He doesn’t know everything.”

Jace nods, point made. Voice flat, “Neither do you.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” he echoes, and slings his left leg over the bike. Starts the engine with a kick. “See you around.”

The city smells like day-old garbage and smog. A car horn blaring from blocks away sparks her nerves. The scar on her neck throbs, phantom pain that strikes in times of overwhelming anxiety. She hadn’t planned on coming back to the city so soon. She wasn’t—“Wait!”

He keeps one foot pressed down firmly to the ground, “What?”

“Can I hitch a ride?”

He regards her with a long stare, as if truly considering. “Why’d you come back at all?”

Clary is dead. Like it or not, it means something to Simon, and to Luke. It means something to her. “Come on, Jace. You know why.”

“I’m not—I won’t be—” he shakes his head, frustration ridging into a deeper pain in the lines of his face. There are dark shadows under his eyes. “I destroy everything I touch. I’m not a vacation. You’re better off facing your shit here.” He grits his teeth and doesn’t finish his line of logic: that he’s better off by himself. No connections.

She’d spent three days upstate telling herself that she needed to strike out on her own, needed to focus on her needs. That she’d chosen herself. Her own private holiday.

Maia had never been alone before. Not truly. Trapped in a house with a family that saw her as a problem to ignore or, worse, solve—not the same as being alone. It was lonely. But it was always a study of contrast, of reactions, a head full of other people to navigate. In time, it was the same with Jordan. Bonding with Luke and joining his pack so soon after waking up from her first full moon covered in someone else’s blood had been a blessing. It filled that space.

One text from Luke and here she was, ready to serve.

“It’s not my shit to deal with.” Her mouth is dry, the sound of her words thin, “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

He has to shout over the rumble of his bike fully warming up, “Doesn’t make much of a difference, does it?”

“What doesn’t?”

Rolling his eyes, as if loathe to say the words aloud, “What you do.”

The banal nihilism pricks at her self-control. “Oh, please. Something doesn’t go your way for once and now the whole world is meaningless?”

“Something didn’t go my way,” he repeats her assessment, a numbness in the delivery that makes her lament her choice of words.

“Sorry.”

“Yeah, everyone’s sorry. Welcome to the club.”

She shortens the strap of her bag so that it rests tight against her body, more like a backpack. Asks, “How do you feel about Canada?” Usually prefers warmer temperatures, but for now craves layers upon layers of clothing covering her body like bubble wrap. Handle with care.

He hands her his helmet. “I don’t feel anything about anywhere.”

So they go.

She molds herself to the notches of his spine, clenches her inner thighs around his hips, unshy. Knows his body. He knows hers. Once they get onto I-95, she quickly understands what people must love about motorcycles. The machine gun engine roar, the momentum, the thick streams of air blowing past—it all comes together in a way that makes it impossible to hold a thought in her head. There’s only sensation. Jace may have to focus on direction, and safety, but all she has to do is hold on and listen to what his movements tell her. The dip in his hip that signals a left turn, or the press of the ball of his foot that increases the speed.

A little over three hours later, they hit Providence.

Jace pulls into a dingy diner off the freeway for lunch. Her nose had picked it up a mile away. When the bike slows to a stop and he drops down his right foot to keep it upright, she follows suit. Muscles now free of the tension that had ratcheted up every mile closer to Brooklyn the bus had taken her that morning, she wobbles a bit at the knees in the dismount.

“You want to talk about it?” he asks over fries and a BLT.

“Not really,” her mouth full of hamburger. “You?”

His smile is faint, ghostlike. Echoes, “Not really.”

“Maybe after we have sex,” she jokes. Does not regret putting that out there, but should. She was still with Simon. Technically.

Jace is similarly unruffled, “Followed me two states over for a quick lay, huh?”

“The states are small in the northeast. Really not that big of a commitment.”

He coughs a short laugh. “My favorite kind.”

They’re playing versions of themselves that they can stand. It can’t last.

It’s dark when they reach Quebec City. Behind them the sky slips into a deep black, but ahead the clouds are illuminated a sickly purple by the lights of the city.

“You ever think it looks like a bruise?” she wonders.

“What?”

She points up in response, and he follows the direction of her arm up with his eyes. Stares for a long time.

“Jace?”

He turns to face her. “There’s an Institute nearby, if you want a free place to spend the night. Tell them I sent you. I’m gonna keep going.”

His tone rattles her. There’s an edge to it, as if he plans to somehow find the end of the earth and drive off it into nothing. It had been there from the start. “Where?”

“You wanted a ride north, I gave it to you. Can’t we just leave it at that?”

“When I said Canada,” she sets her hands on her hips, “I didn’t mean another city. I meant like the middle of nowhere.”

Voice clipped, “What are you running from, Maia?”

He wants to distract her. He wants payment in the form of her secrets, and she’s not going to give them up. They’re hers.

“What are you running towards, Jace?”

He scrubs at his face with both palms and groans. “Are you tired? Do you want to find somewhere to sleep?”

Crossing her arms over her chest, she retorts, “I can drive if you need to rest.” She doesn’t know how to operate a motorcycle, but imagines it can’t be much more difficult than driving stick.

“Fine, let’s stop somewhere.”

“Fine!”

They hunker down in a small Airbnb near the northern city limit for the night. A coin flip results in Maia on the couch and Jace in the bedroom, and she listens to him toss and turn for hours. It’s a relief. At first. Takes her out of her head. But her mind was where she had to live. Couldn’t sidestep it forever. She’d left the first time to sort herself out without interference—it’s all wrong now.

When she cracks open the bedroom door, she finds him sitting at the edge of the bed, head in hands.

Asks, “Isn’t there a rune for that?”

“For what?” He doesn’t lift his head. “Sleeping?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” he admits.

She bites her lip at the thought of how quickly she could tire him out. “Well, you’re keeping me up. Sensitive hearing.”

His “sorry” is flippant.

“Lie down,” she orders, and he does. Splays out on his back, slightly to the left side of the Queen size mattress. She slips under the covers to his right and matches his position. States, “You’re right. We should split up.”

“I know.”

“But I can’t do it if I know you’re—If I know you might—” when he turns his face away from her, she changes tactics— “I’d really rather not, but I care what happens to you.”

“Sure you do.”

A quick exhale, and, “Okay, let’s just do this. Clary’s dead. How does that make you feel?”

He shifts back, eyes flashing when they catch hers, “Ah, the big guns.” He laughs mirthlessly. Touches her face, leans in to kiss her—stills only when she pulls away. Mimics, “How does that make you feel?”

Feels like deja vu.

Tells him: “Adversity binds people together. I know you and Clary were tangled up with it, I know how much you loved her. I can’t imagine—”

“It wasn’t like that,” he lets go, voice raw. “We went through everything apart.” After a prolonged silence, continues, “It was never us against the world.”

She presses a palm to his temple, fingertips curling in, “Jace.”

“I hurt her. I got her killed. God, who cares if I loved her?”

The space quiets. Minutes tick by from a wall clock over the stove in the kitchen. She has no response for him. None other than “It wasn’t you.” She’s been trying not to accept that as an answer anymore.

“You don’t think you’re giving yourself a little too much credit?” Retracts her hand.

“I should have been stronger,” he shakes his head in disagreement. “I was raised to be stronger than that.”

Sometimes perseverance in the face of hardship didn’t build character, or strength. Maia recalls athletes competing with injuries, shooting themselves up with cortisol or simply pushing through the pain—and where that led.

She sits up, right leg swinging down to press her foot to the carpet. “I need to recharge. You should, too.”

“You don’t have to go.”

She doesn't. It’s a fact. It wouldn’t even be the first time. Still, quips pointedly, eyes narrowed, “You want to be a gentleman and take the couch, I’m not gonna protest.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he won’t let her change his intention so easy. “But sure, if you want.”

She stands, “Forget it.”

“Forgotten.”

“Oh, and I don’t have access to mystical Tylenol P.M. like you do. Use it—for my sake.”

“Okay.”

Curled up on the couch again, with only the faint sounds of a quiet city and Jace’s even breathing, she’s out in minutes—

She’s up.

The thud of the bedroom window sliding shut rouses her immediately.

Hadn’t changed out of her jeans or loose, red sweater to collapse into sleep, so she only needs to yank on her boots to give chase. As a wolf, she would hurt him right now. She wants to hurt him. Sticks with her human form. Utilizing her heightened senses takes extra focus but leaves her more in control. She glimpses a flash of blonde disappearing into a treeline to the north.

It’s easier than it should be to catch up, bend to wrap her upper body around his waist and tackle him down into the earth. He struggles, twisting and jostling against her to turn onto his back, but doesn’t throw her off.

Her breaths are harsh rasps, her breaths are growls, her breaths are sobs. “You leave a note this time, asshole?”

“I left you my bike,” he answers simply. Presses his palms to the fronts of her shoulders to hold her at a distance. “Maia—”

“You don’t get to bail on me,” she pants. “I can’t—”

“I don’t want to hurt you—”

“Then don’t hurt me!”

Her body is on the precipice of a shift. Skin hot and itchy, bones brittle. Jace readjusts to grip her by the biceps in an attempt to get some distance from her growing claws, eyes wide and staring frantically into hers. She’s glad he still has it in him to fear for his life.

The reality of turning Jace jolts her back, “Calm me down, Jace.”

He steels himself and shakes his head, “You don’t have to be calm.”

She strains against the cradle of his arms, but lets him help keep her upright as she breathes through it. Cannot shake the thoughts in her head. How little middle ground she could sometimes see between victim and aggressor. How it had been that way for her ever since Jordan.

Jace’s voice: “Do something.”

“No,” she demands, “You.” She reaches out with a hand that is fully human again to grab a fistful of his t-shirt. “You do something.” He’s got her on her back in the dirt in seconds, hands on the button of her jeans, then the zipper— “No, do something—” do something that matters.

“No?”

She grabs onto his hair with both hands and yanks his mouth down to hers. Kisses him messily, no teeth, all tongue, tasting. Mud, char, saline. He’s crying. Buries his face in the crook of her neck and rocks against her.

They should stop. Instead, she murmurs, “I want to feel good.”

“Tell me,” he rasps against the swell of her cheek.

“Make me feel good.”

He kisses her breathless, sucking the air from her mouth before it can pass her lips. Slips his left hand under her shoulder to reach up and cradle her head from the uneven ground. She fumbles for his belt, but he swipes her hands away.

“Jace—” she starts, before his free hand works its way down her pants. Her mouth slackens at the slide of his fingertips. They skid past her clit to trace the folds of her cunt, to shallowly penetrate her. Teasing. He’s teasing. “C’mon—” she wants to fuck, she wants to get out of her head—

Yanks at his belt again.

“I can’t,” he murmurs. “I can’t.”

She trusts up against him, one leg arching up to sling over the swell of his hip to crush their bodies together. He gets the message. His touch turns rough, straining against the confines of her jeans. A rune lights on his neck. She imagines it’s to dull the pain from the twisted position his arm is in—from how hard he’s working her, and how long. She orgasms with a startled gasp at the thought, head thrown back as far as his left hand in her hair will allow it. He presses his forehead to hers and lets out a hot exhale as he stretches to curl three fingers deep inside of her, the ball of his hand grinding against her clit. Turns the orgasm into another, and another. Does this until her thighs are shaking, thoughtless tear tracks sliding from the outer corners of her eyes.

The touch turns painful, her clit oversensitive, too much sensation, but he pushes her past it and into another orgasm that rends a loud cry from her. Breath hitching painfully in her chest like she might begin sobbing any second, she grabs his wrist with both hands to still him.

He stops immediately. Extricates himself from their tangle of limbs and rolls onto his back next to her. Throws the arm nearest to her up over his eyes, breathing heavily.

She wheezes next to him, painful, strangled sounds. The world floods back.

“I need to break up with Simon,” she states when she is calm enough to do so. Fastens her jeans with steady hands.

“Why?” There is an earnestness to his question that unsettles her.

“Because I hate cheaters.” Keeps her eyes fixed on the few stars visible through the canopy of trees above them. “Even when they’re me.”

“Tell him the truth.” He glances over, guilt flickering in his eyes and pulling at the cut of his cheeks and then gone again. “He’s forgiven worse.” Jace considers her for a long moment when she does not answer. “You think he won’t choose you over the help Praetor Lupus could give him. You self-sabotaged.”

“He did,” she corrects uselessly. “He did choose me. He was going to tell Jordan to leave.”

Can feel his understanding of her tightening as he prods, “And this is what you did? This is what you chose?”

A huff of derisive laughter, and, “I didn’t choose you, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Oh, I wasn’t.”

The landscape around them is lit by the reflected light of the city in the clouds, by the moon and stars, by a streetlamp a hundred feet away. If they’d gotten farther north it would be pitch black. She tries to imagine it. She closes her eyes and ignores the warmth he emanates, the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes, the slight sourness of his exhales.

Alone.

Lifts her arm over her head to not be able to see it as she does.

“What did Simon tell you?” Her mouth is dry, tongue like sandpaper. “About me and Jordan?”

“That he turned you, and left you for dead,” his words matter of fact, but not without empathy. “That before that you had dated.”

“It was more than that.”

“I know.”

She opens her eyes, but can’t look at him as she speaks, “It always ends up sounding like an after school special. Or a Lifetime movie.”

“I’ve never seen any of those.” Sometimes she cannot fathom a single aspect of him. “Wouldn’t sound like anything to me.”

Scoffs, “I don’t care about how it sounds to you.”

“Yes,” and he’s as surprised as she is, “you do.”

Wants to tell him that she loathes him, wants to tell him to take off his clothes—but after a beat of silence, what comes out is, “Did you love Valentine?”

“When?” A stalling tactic.

Craning her neck to look over at him fully, she answers, “Ever.”

His smile lasts a split second before wavering. “What do you think?”

She’s ready to share. “Jordan got too controlling, and his anger—it was scary. I didn’t know that he was dealing with being turned. I broke it off.”

He takes in the details of her expression, eyes squinting to see despite the relative darkness. “You think it’s your fault.”

“No,” she refuses. Purses her mouth tightly and shakes her head.  
  
“His?”

“He could have killed me!” Becoming a werewolf wasn’t like becoming a vampire. There was no digging herself out of her own grave. Her breath didn’t stop, and her heart beat through even the worst of the pain. It was a sampling of what was to come. The strength, the heightened senses, the escape from her human mind—it had a cost. Bones breaking, skin stretching and ripping. “Sometimes I think he wanted to kill me.”

“Because it’d be easier to hate him?”

“I don’t know.”

“What would you say to me?” He stands lithely, paces a few steps away. With his back still to her, “What would you say if I told you that I still believed that Valentine loved me? That I believed it through every broken bone, that I believed it with a knife in my chest?”

“I’d say it didn’t fucking matter how he felt.” She presses two hands the earth to push up to standing. Takes a step in his direction. Stops when he turns to face her. “It matters what he did.”

“You know what he said to me as I choked on my own blood?”

She feels unlocked. Overwhelmed tears well up in her eyes, spilling over with her response, “That he was sorry.”

“Yeah,” he nods, and pushes his hair out of his face.

“Well, I’m glad he’s dead.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. Jace’s face stills, his expression shifting into something unreadable.

“Jace?” she breathes. Swallows and speaks again with more volume, “That’s not—I mean, I am happy that he’s gone. Okay? I’m not going to deny that. But I was kind of trying to say something else, too.”

“Yeah, what’s that?”

“That I’m glad you’re alive.” She shrugs helplessly. “I’m even glad you’re here with me right now.”

A smirk blooms on his face slow, like a flower in real time. “Embarrassing, isn’t it?”

“Stop.”

Civil twilight lightens the sky as they journey back to the rented house. They share the bed. His skin is cool when they brush against each other under the covers. She runs hot. Threads her legs with his, one palm on the dip of his waist under his t-shirt. When she kisses him, he opens his mouth against hers but doesn’t take it any further.

“Sorry,” she murmurs.

“It’s okay.”

When she wakes, Jace is gone. His motorcycle is still there, along with a note tucked into the helmet he’d left on the coffee table. Reads: _You’ll figure it out._ No signature, his penmanship neater than the boyish chicken scratch she would have expected. Cartoonishly vague.

“Asshole,” she mutters to an empty room, the paper crinkling as her hand tightens around it.

It was time to go home and face her shit.  



End file.
